Criminal Justice
Jail for False Wash. Rape Case ‘Victim’; Prosecutors Will Now Be More Careful
Posted Mar 19, 2008, 02:46 pm CST
By Martha Neil
When Katherine Clifton told Seattle area authorities last year that she had been raped, she was "an extremely articulate and credible victim. There was no reason to suspect she wasn't telling the truth," a King County Sheriff's spokesman says.
But she wasn't. The suburban Seattle woman was sentenced to a year in jail yesterday, with all but one week suspended, after she pleaded guilty to fabricating a rape case against a local college professor from whom she was taking a class, reports the Seattle Times. Additional provisions include a requirement that she pay his attorney fees.
Prosecutors admit they made a mistake by charging the unnamed professor, who spent nine days in jail and was put on leave from his job before the case unraveled. However, authorities say Clifton, 22, initially presented them with persuasive evidence, including e-mails from the professor discussing his romantic interest in her.
The e-mail and a purported court order, however, turned out to be altered or fabricated. After investigators found no evidence of sexual assault—and none of the professor's fingerprints at Clifton's suburban Seattle home, at which she said the rape had occurred—the case against the professor was dropped.
Clifton says she is very sorry, according to her attorney, and explains in a court filing that sexual abuse when she was a child has left her with issues to deal with, the newspaper reports.
But the professor, too, has now been damaged: "Even though I did absolutely nothing wrong ... my rape and burglary with sexual-motivation charges, albeit false, will remain in the court records forever," he says in a filing.
True rape victims will also pay a price, as their cases are treated with greater skepticism, a prosecutor says.
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